[bigfatpaulie]

I don't know what kind of QC they do at BH so I can't speak to that.  That said, there are a lot of small parts and I would suspect that sometimes the missing parts actually were packed but were lost upon unpacking.  I'm not saying that is what happened in this case, but I imagine it happens more often than one might expect.
 
Plus, the internet is a great place to vent so we probably hear about EVERY missing part, but we don't hear about every perfect order that makes it.  I have a feeling the problem seems bigger than it actually is from our perspective.
 
That said, it does happen - My kit was missing the BH badge.  They quickly shipped me one, but they did incur the extra shipping costs just like they will in the case of the resistors above.  That gets expensive quick and it would be in BH's favor to be more accurate (plus it is disappointing as you have pointed out).

 

[JamieMcC]

Quote:

  My Crack + Speedball kit was shipped with 2 missing resistors. Been trying to get Bottlehead ship me those 2 missing resistors. Not sure how long it will take for them to ship out the 2 resistors to me, not to mention the additional wait due to shipping time.
 
Communication with them hasn't been good.

 
I think I remember seeing a post about Queen Bee (the lady who deals with emails and sending spares) being away for a few days this week, A quick pm to doc on headfi or on the bottlehead forum I am sure will see them posted to you quickly.
 
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Matt yes it can be frustrating on the flip side though if you fry parts of your Crack when building, Bottlehead are quick to send out free replacements. A lot of the resistors, caps,led's etc they hold in stock so its only a couple of days at most normally from what I can gather. It looks like the main reason for the long shipping times is to due processing batches of top plates and bases to keep control of costs. It would be very expensive to just do a couple of tops and bases at a time.

 

[JamieMcC]

  I don't know what kind of QC they do at BH so I can't speak to that.  That said, there are a lot of small parts and I would suspect that sometimes the missing parts actually were packed but were lost upon unpacking.  I'm not saying that is what happened in this case, but I imagine it happens more often than one might expect.
 
Plus, the internet is a great place to vent so we probably hear about EVERY missing part, but we don't hear about every perfect order that makes it.  I have a feeling the problem seems bigger than it actually is from our perspective.
 
That said, it does happen - My kit was missing the BH badge.  They quickly shipped me one, but they did incur the extra shipping costs just like they will in the case of the resistors above.  That gets expensive quick and it would be in BH's favor to be more accurate (plus it is disappointing as you have pointed out).

 
Err this happened to me with my speed ball kit, luckily I found the parts stuck to some of that sticky backed bubble wrap!  So didn't need to order spares. 

 

[bigfatpaulie]

   
Err this happened to me with my speed ball kit, luckily I found the parts stuck to some of that sticky backed bubble wrap!  So didn't need to order spares. 

 
There you go.  It can happen to the best of us!  

 

[Doc B.]

I do apologize for the missing parts. I will personally check into the followup on getting the replacements to you. If I can know who you are it would be helpful, as we don't have any way to correlate a Head-Fi username with our customer database.
 
It's nice to have people here who offer suggestions on how to better our business. We've only been doing this for about 20 years and I'm sure we still have a lot to learn. 

 

[Tequilasunriser]

   
The only thing that stands out to me with my limited knowledge is the braiding of the rca input wires could be a bit tighter and I have seen some builds use shielded wiring. 
 
Have you tried the Crack with a different source like a cd player or phono to see the noise is still present?

That was going to be my suggestion too, wrapping some sort of shielding around the RCA cables or redoing it with shielded cables. I seem to remember that being the most useful solution to resolving Crack hum over the years.

 

[Feynman]

  That was going to be my suggestion too, wrapping some sort of shielding around the RCA cables or redoing it with shielded cables. I seem to remember that being the most useful solution to resolving Crack hum over the years.

What kind of shielding would it be possible to put there just to try it out without the need for recabling with new shielded cables? I would be so happy to be able to completely remove the hum!

 

[Mahdi8]

A copper shielding tape would do the job. But replacing the cable would be faster I think.

 

[Doc B.]

Before you put too much time into that verify whether the hum goes up and down as you turn the volume control. If it changes then it is possible that hum is being picked up somewhere ahead of the volume pot like the input wiring, or your interconnects or your source component. If the hum stays the same regardless of the volume setting don't waste too much effort on that part of the amp as that means the hum is coming in after the volume pot, like maybe a tube that has a little heater-cathode leakage or there is some interference in the room like maybe a power transformer on another piece of gear that is close to the amp.

 

[roguegeek]

The good news with a lot of the parts are that they the majority of them can be picked up somewhere or substituted for something else. I was missing a part from both my Crack and Speedball, but was able to source them fairly quick locally with help from the people on the forums.

 

[spacequeen7]

  Before you put too much time into that verify whether the hum goes up and down as you turn the volume control. If it changes then it is possible that hum is being picked up somewhere ahead of the volume pot like the input wiring, or your interconnects or your source component. If the hum stays the same regardless of the volume setting don't waste too much effort on that part of the amp as that means the hum is coming in after the volume pot, like maybe a tube that has a little heater-cathode leakage or there is some interference in the room like maybe a power transformer on another piece of gear that is close to the amp.

I just rechecked all that could cause the noise ...wish I payed more attention earlier..I had 1250W Seasonic PSU (for benching) connected to the power strip  just siting 7" behind the Crack ..I feel so dumb 

 (tapping on the Crack or tube and it's dead silent !!!!!!!) 

 

[olegausany]

 Before you put too much time into that verify whether the hum goes up and down as you turn the volume control. If it changes then it is possible that hum is being picked up somewhere ahead of the volume pot like the input wiring, or your interconnects or your source component. If the hum stays the same regardless of the volume setting don't waste too much effort on that part of the amp as that means the hum is coming in after the volume pot, like maybe a tube that has a little heater-cathode leakage or there is some interference in the room like maybe a power transformer on another piece of gear that is close to the amp.

I just rechecked all that could cause the noise ...wish I payed more attention earlier..I had 1250W Seasonic PSU (for benching) connected to the power strip  just siting 7" behind the Crack ..I feel so dumb 

 (tapping on the Crack or tube and it's dead silent !!!!!!!) 

A $10 power strip and then complaining? Get yourself a Furman one costing over $100 on Amazon and enjoy your music

 

[mcandmar]

  I just rechecked all that could cause the noise ...wish I payed more attention earlier..I had 1250W Seasonic PSU (for benching) connected to the power strip  just siting 7" behind the Crack ..I feel so dumb 

 (tapping on the Crack or tube and it's dead silent !!!!!!!) 

 
That just goes to show, even with a very high quality ATX power supply it should still be kept as far away from audio equipment as possible.  I got caught out recently chasing a bzzzzzt noise only to find it was the energy saving light bulb i put into my desk lamp.  ...same lamp i was using to illuminating the wiring i was rerouting to cure the noise

 

[evertzzz]

excuse me Doc B., may I ask one thing? about the Crack OTL Headphone Amplifier Kit voltage input. If I order it with 240VAC power transformer, can it still be used in a place with 100sVAC?

 

[Loquah]

  excuse me Doc B., may I ask one thing? about the Crack OTL Headphone Amplifier Kit voltage input. If I order it with 240VAC power transformer, can it still be used in a place with 100sVAC?

 
I can answer that I think (but I'm not not related to Bottlehead in any way so this doesn't represent a response from the manufacturer):
 
The transformers are fixed voltage (i.e. not a smart system that adapts based on the power source you connect it to). In order to use the 240V transformer in a 100sV country you would need a step down transformer of some sort.